Iraq-Erbil: Nat Rothschild’s world stretches from the coal mines of Indonesia via the aluminum smelters of Siberia to a legendary wine estate in France. And it just got much bigger.

Last week, Mr. Rothschild made a huge bet on the oil fields of Iraqi Kurdistan, one of the last great frontiers in oil exploration. His investment vehicle Vallares PLC said it will merge with Genel Energy International Ltd., a Turkish firm that pumps oil in Kurdistan, to create a $4 billion company.

The deal has raised some eyebrows in London. Critics say cash shells like Vallares provide a back door to the London Stock Exchange for murky emerging-market firms that might otherwise fail to comply with listing rules.

Yet when Vallares listed last June, it raised a whopping $2.18 billion—a mark of the faith Mr. Rothschild inspires in investors.

“These are very unusual structures because you get entrusted with people’s capital and get given the license to do what you want with it, on the basis of trust,” he says.

That trust is an asset Mr. Rothschild has leveraged into a complex network of business interests spanning the globe. The scion of a banking dynasty that expanded its wealth by cultivating relationships with influential people, he is equally at ease among Russian oligarchs, English aristocrats and New York socialites. Based in Klosters, Switzerland, he will spend more than 700 hours aboard his private jet this year.

But his impressive Rolodex has occasionally landed him in hot water. In 2008, he was at the center of a political scandal in the U.K. over his links to the Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska. More recently, his ties to Seif el-Islam Gadhafi, son of the ousted Libyan dictator, have come under scrutiny.

These links haven’t done his business any harm. Ranked 67th in the Sunday Times’s list of the U.K.’s 1,000 richest people, with a fortune of £1 billion, he will become a lot richer thanks to the Vallares deal. For an initial outlay of $100 million, he and the other co-founders will get a 6.67% stake in the newly enlarged Genel. Mr. Rothschild’s share will be worth around $230 million.

But he insists he’s not in it for the money. “It’s incredibly enjoyable doing what we do—it’s as simple as that,” he says in an interview at his bankers, J.P.Morgan Cazenove, in the heart of London.

The youngest of four children and the only son of Jacob, Lord Rothschild, Nathaniel Victor James Rothschild was born in 1971 and educated at Eton, Britain’s most prestigious fee-paying school.

At Oxford he joined the Bullingdon Club, an exclusive dining society notorious for its rowdy parties, whose past members include the British prime minister, David Cameron. It’s not something he’s proud of.

“I certainly have no intention or desire to be a member of a club like that again,” he says. Since Oxford, he’s been teetotal.

He started off at investment bank Lazard. In 1996 Mr. Rothschild became a partner and later co-chairman of Atticus Capital LP, which came to epitomize a new breed of aggressive, globally connected hedge funds.

'Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?' The soul answered and said, 'What binds me has been slain, and what surrounds me has been overcome, and my desire has been ended, and ignorance has died. In a [world] I was released from a world, [and] in a type from a heavenly type, and (from) the fetter of oblivion which is transient. From this time on will I attain to the rest of the time, of the season, of the aeon, in silence.'

A little rundown of what else young Nat has been up to over the lat decade... Training well.

In 2000, The Observer wrote that, in addition to Nathaniel's then declared inheritance of £500 million, his actual inheritance "hidden in a series of trusts in Switzerland is rumoured to be worth £40bn".[5] Via NR Investments Ltd., his principal investment company, Nathaniel Rothschild was a cornerstone investor in the United Company Rusal initial public offering in January 2010. At the same time Rothschild bought $40 million of Glencore bonds convertible into shares upon an IPO.Also Rothschilds NR Investments Ltd. is the largest shareholder (26,5% End December 2009) of Volex, a Manchester-based electrical cable maker. Furthermore Nathaniel Rothschild owns a 11% share in BR Properties, a Brazilian property company, and has an interest in various property developments in Eastern Europe (Montenegro, Romania and Ukraine).In July 2010 Vallar Plc, a Jersey-incorporated investment vehicle founded by Nathaniel Rothschild, raised £707.2 million ($1.07 billion) in an Initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange. Vallar is led by Rothschild and James Campbell, a former Anglo American PLC coal and base metals chief. Together with other members of the Vallar management team, they have invested £100 million in shares of the company. Vallar will focus on investments in mining of metals, coal, and iron ore in the Americas, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Australia.[6]In November 2010, Vallar announced it was buying stakes for $3bn in two listed Indonesia thermal coal (used for power stations) producers for a combination of cash and new Vallar shares, with a view to combining them to create the largest exporter of thermal coal to China, India, and the other emerging economies of Asia. The transaction closed as planned on April 8, 2011.[7]In 2011, Valler plc was renamed "BUMI plc". [8]In June 2011, Rothschild and Tony Hayward, the former chief executive of BP plc, listed a successor vehicle to Vallar called Vallares (LSE:VLRS) in London Stock Exchange, raising $2,2 billion. Essentially, this was identical in every respect to the first vehicle, which was metals and mining focused, except that the new entity would try to acquire oil & gas assets. [9]In September, Vallares announced a 50/50 all stock merger with Turkish Energy Champion Genel Energy, valued at $4,2billion. [10]In 2011, The Sunday Times estimated his personal fortune to be $1.6 billion.[11][edit]

You know who he is in partnership with: Tony Hayward ex-boss of BP and who took the brunt of the GOM fiasco!

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness. Dalai Lama Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. Albert EinsteinThe kingdom of God is within you and all around you. It is not within buildings of wood or stone. Split a piece of wood and you will find me. Look beneath a stone and I am there.Stigmata

That country is sitting on the largest fresh water aquifer on the continent. And their treasury contains a shitload of gold.

Quoting: Anonymous Coward 1337441

Mainly it's a target because it is not yet controlled by globalist central bank lizards.

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Quoting: Anonymous Coward 1337441

Let's not forget it's also in the "Desertec" zone.. Another Rothschild essential project for future power needs of Europe.. Along with all the other North African nations that they have created "Arab springs" in...